


Every Other Freckle

by ashamedbliss



Series: Once and Future Queen [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Always-a-girl!Merlin, Blow Jobs, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbending, Girl!Merlin, Light Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Possessive Arthur, Power Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 22:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3094895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashamedbliss/pseuds/ashamedbliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's maidservant has been distant since their last encounter. This will not do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Other Freckle

**Author's Note:**

> so after such a positive response to [Like I Breathe You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2363573), I decided to make this into a series with an actual plot and actual progression. It's all plotted out and I'm very excited. Keeping them as seperate works because they can be read as one-offs, but I'd recommend reading them in order to keep up with them properly. Title for this one is from the Alt-J song of the same name; the lyrics are so relevant, if a bit modern for canon era.

Merlin’s eyelashes flutter against her cheeks as she looks down at the jug of wine in her hands, pouring it into Geoffrey of Monmouth’s goblet. Her long, nimble fingers are steady with the heavy jug as she moves around the table, pouring wine for each of the men gathered. When she reaches the King’s side, she curtsies slightly before pouring his wine steadily, her breaths shallow at his side, her heartbeat nearly audible.

Arthur doesn’t look up at her, but he notices things out of the corner of his eye. Her hair, usually so unruly in its curls, today in two braids that do nothing to conceal her ears. The way her bottom lip is slightly chapped, perhaps from biting it too much or from constantly being outside in the warm breeze, attending to her duties. The light, sparse freckles across the bridge of her nose that he’d never noticed before, brought out by the summer sun.

They’ve barely spoken since that night, the night Arthur desperately wanted to repeat but didn’t know how to recreate the circumstances, the electricity that had crackled in the air between them as they had pleasured each other. She hasn’t so much as looked at him when they’ve been in the same room, and after three weeks Arthur’s patience is wearing thin.

Merlin stops pouring his wine and steps away, and Arthur clears his throat, his crown heavy on his head as he becomes the King once more.

“Shall we begin?”

*

Since his father’s death, Gaius had become a close advisor of Arthur’s, even if the physician refused to sit on the King’s councils, for fear that he was not worthy of the honour. Arthur is making his way to see him when he hears loud female laughter from a room off the corridor he’s on. He slows his steps, treading carefully on the stone before peeking around the door, feeling as if he were a child again, exploring the castle for the first time.

Merlin and another maidservant, Guinevere, are arranging flowers in a vase in one of the guest chambers, preparing for a visit from a neighbouring noble family. The visit would be another attempt by Arthur’s council to ensure a successor to the throne, one which Arthur had originally been keen on but over the past few weeks had grown weary of. Arthur watches Merlin delicately handle each flower as if it were made of glass, and wonders why he doesn’t want to have a potential bride paraded before him once again.

“Merlin, you know you can tell me anything,” Guinevere says warmly but also in a slightly patronising tone, and Arthur grits his teeth. How dare she talk to Merlin like that, as if she has some sort of entitlement over her?

“I know, Gwen,” Merlin replies, ducking her head slightly as she places another flower gently in the vase. Arthur has never heard the other servant called by that nickname before. He realises Merlin looks like she belongs here, her blue dress blending in with the pastel blues and creams, the colours of the visiting family. Arthur makes a mental note to procure her some red dresses for the duration of the visit.

“Oh, come on,” Gwen says, snatching the flowers from Merlin’s grip and holding them, swinging their hands between their bodies. “I just want to know what he’s like. Surely the King isn’t always so... so boring and _serious_ in his chambers, is he?”

“Gwen!” Merlin laughs, the musical sound making Arthur forget the fact that he was just called _boring_. He was quite sure that was treason. “I couldn’t...”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Gwen promises quickly.

Merlin sighs, crossing the room to sit on the edge of a freshly-made bed, something she shouldn’t be doing and something that she would need to be punished for. Arthur checks down the hallway once more to make sure he’s still alone, before he listens in to what Merlin is saying.

She turns to Guinevere sitting at her side, both of them still looking away from the doorway, before she sighs loudly. “He’s...”

 _A monster_ , Arthur thinks before he can stop himself. _Inhuman. He takes advantage of maidservants years younger than him, spanking them and choking them and pouring wax all over them. Only one maidservant, though. One with beautiful blue eyes who looks at him like she’s a blind woman seeing for the first time._

“Different,” Merlin says eventually, and Arthur finds himself able to breathe again. “Kind,” she continues in a soft voice, sounding far away. “Giving.”

“Merlin, you can’t say things as _vague_ as that when you’ve been so quiet for the past three weeks! Something has happened between you two, hasn’t it?”

Arthur simultaneously loves and hates the way Merlin’s cheeks fill with colour, the way she dips her head slightly and bites at her bottom lip. “Of course not,” she says, and Arthur decides enough is enough. He creeps back down the corridor, only to return up it noisily, walking unannounced into the room.

“Sire,” Merlin says first, as if she is attuned to his every movement within the castle, standing from the bed hurriedly and curtsying slightly in her dark blue dress. Guinevere follows suit at her side, both of them quickly returning to their work with the flowers.

“I wish to speak to my maidservant,” Arthur says in the tone of voice he uses when he’s commanding his knights on the battlefield. “Alone.”

Guinevere, looking suitably frightened, curtsies hurriedly before leaving the room, shutting the door behind her. Arthur turns to look at Merlin, who is fiddling with one of the flowers that had been destined for the arrangement.

“It matches your eyes,” Arthur finds himself saying, despite the fact that he’s angry with the girl before him for divulging such personal details. But then Merlin looks up at him with those blue eyes once more, and Arthur is lost.

“ _Centaurea cyanus_ ,” she says softly, placing it into the vase. “It’s a cornflower. Gaius taught me the names of flowers when I used to work with him. It doesn’t have many healing properties, but...” she looks up at Arthur and smiles, “I think it’s pretty.”

“Do you miss working for him?” Arthur asks, voice deliberately cold.

Merlin looks down at her hands, clasping them before her. Arthur misses the Merlin that emerged the night he punished her, although they were both fully aware it hadn’t been punishment for either of them. But the awkward silences, Merlin’s unrelenting obedience and complete lack of talking back, those had become the norm in the past three weeks, and Arthur hated it. “No,” she says, looking down still. “I enjoy serving you, sire.”

“ _Serve_ me then, Merlin,” Arthur says, placing a hand on her chin and tipping her head up, forcing their eyes to meet, Merlin’s wide. “Do I scare you?”

“N-No, sire,” Merlin whimpers.

Arthur looks between her eyes and her lips. “Do you want me to scare you?” he asks slowly, softly.

Merlin gasps quietly. “Sire,” she breathes.

Arthur leans in, feeling the soft skin of her cheek against his clean shaven jaw. “Have I been too lenient, Merlin?” he drawls in the way he knows she loves, his lips brushing against her ear as he speaks. “Too distant? Have you missed my command?” Arthur brings his hand up to Merlin’s neck, caressing the bare skin there through his leather glove. “Have you missed my control?”

“Please, sire,” Merlin barely moans, but it’s enough.

“What do you want me to do with you?” Arthur asks as he steps back, expecting Merlin to stay silent.

“Well, you made quite a few promises last time,” Merlin says in a husky voice, a smirk on her lips as she looks up through her eyelashes at him.

“There she is,” Arthur says lowly. “I was wondering where the Merlin I know had gone.” Merlin grins shyly, but Arthur gives nothing away in his own expression. “You seem to have forgotten your manners though. Have you forgotten my title?”

Merlin’s eyes go wide again. “No, sire, I haven’t.”

Arthur steps forward once more, placing his gloved hands on Merlin’s shoulders. “And have you no respect?” he asks, sounding thoroughly offended. “Kneel before your King.”

Merlin falls to her knees, perhaps half a second before Arthur actually pushed down on her slim shoulders. She looks up at him before looking at his crotch, where she can surely see his cock beginning to fill in his breeches.

“Well?” Arthur asks, doing his best to sound uninterested, his voice close to betraying him. “You were begging to do this last time, Merlin.”

Merlin looks up at him, the corners of her full lips curling up into a smile. “But _sire_ ,” she says, smiling around the word. “You promised that I could wear your crown.” She slides her hands up Arthur’s thighs, long fingers reaching for the laces. “ _One day_ ,” she says in a deliberately lower voice, one that makes Arthur’s cock twitch. “ _One day, you’ll wear my crown, and I’ll feed you my cock until you choke on it_. I’ve thought about those words every day since, sire.”

Smiling up at him innocently, Merlin unlaces Arthur’s breeches as she talks, letting his hard cock fall forward out of them before she lowers her hands and becomes silent. Arthur reaches up to the crown still weighing heavy on his head, taking it off to place it in Merlin’s thick curls, his maidservant looking much more regal than she has any right to.

“You look like a queen,” Arthur says, at a loss of what to say, barely holding onto the threads of control he still has because Merlin is the one utterly dominating them both, even on her knees before her King.

Merlin laughs, melodic, one hand wrapping around Arthur’s cock as he hisses. “Perhaps. But would a queen suck your cock like this?”

Merlin’s lips are impossibly tight around the head of Arthur’s cock, and he tips his head back and groans as she slowly takes the whole of him into her mouth. He reaches to thread a hand through her hair, cursing softly when he remembers the combination of her tight braids and his gloved hands, unable to get a good grip. Merlin sucks languidly on his cock until only his head is sheathed, before she releases him with a wet pop.

“I want you to fuck my mouth, sire,” she says, her lips shining with saliva and precome beginning to bead at the head of Arthur’s cock. Her tongue flicks out rapidly to lick at it. “I want to choke on it, I really do. I want to cry because it’s so good,” she says, kissing down the side of his cock, one hand coming to play with his balls. “If it’s too much... I don’t think it will be, sire, but if it is, I’ll pinch your thigh, like this.”

She pinches his thigh through his breeches, and Arthur flinches. “Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur says, voice hoarse, mind resorting to default as he becomes more aroused.

Merlin sits back and smiles. “Make me,” she says, before parting her lips, tongue flat in her mouth.

Arthur groans lowly, holding the back of Merlin’s head as he feeds her his cock until her nose is touching the curls of blond hair at the base of it. “ _Gods_ , Merlin, you’re so hungry for it, aren’t you?” he says as one of Merlin’s hands creeps up under his tunic, the other caressing the spot behind his balls. “I bet you pinned the stable boys down and _begged_ them to let you suck their cocks, filthy girl.”

Merlin whines at the back of her throat, scratching Arthur’s belly softly with her short fingernails. Arthur looks down at her, where his slick cock disappears and reappears from Merlin’s mouth, her big blue eyes looking up at him, his crown dangerously close to slipping off her head.

“Take it, then,” Arthur hisses, holding Merlin’s head still with both hands and beginning to fuck her mouth, clenching his teeth when he feels the head of his cock hit the back of her throat. She gags a little but carries on, eyes shut tight as tears begin to fall down her face, over the freckles Arthur had admired earlier.

Arthur eases up only slightly as he hears voices in the corridor outside, having forgotten he was not in the safety of his own chambers with a guard stood at his door. He looks back down at Merlin, pressing a finger to his lips to keep her quiet as he slows his pace but keeps his thrusts just as deep, his orgasm nearing.

Someone knocks at the door. “Sire?” the voice calls, sounding suspiciously like Leon.

Arthur resists the urge to roll his eyes, looking down at Merlin and her wrecked gaze. “Just a minute,” he replies loudly from between his teeth. “Come on,” he hisses.

Merlin grips at Arthur’s breeches urgently with one hand, intent on finishing what she started as she raises an eyebrow in challenge. The fingers of her other hand are deep in Arthur’s breeches now, and as she ghosts her index finger over his hole, he shudders in surprise and comes undone in her mouth.

Arthur bites a finger of his glove to refrain from shouting, Merlin sucking every last drop of his orgasm from him. As soon as he’s finished coming, he’s pulling out of her mouth and tucking himself back in, motioning at her to hide. “Sire?” the voice calls again, and Arthur makes sure Merlin is out of sight before he finally opens the door.

“Do you not understand the concept of a minute, Leon?” he asks gruffly, the door only open the slightest amount.

“I apologise sire,” Leon begins, “I had to tell you about-- are you alright, sire? You’re awfully flushed.”

“It’s this... summer weather,” Arthur says, waving a hand around in the air before crossing his arms. “What is it?”

Leon fidgets. “I just needed to inform you that the royal party have arrived in Camelot, and will be greeted in the throne room tomorrow morning. Guinevere told me she saw you in here, so I thought I should...”

“Splendid,” Arthur says, before going to close the door.

“Sire?” Leon asks, and Arthur hates his most trusted knight in this moment. “You might want to find your crown before then, though.”

Arthur blinks, before reaching up to his head to realise that yes, his crown was not there as it should’ve been. “You’re absolutely right. Thank you, Leon,” he says before shutting the door, turning and leaning heavily against it.

Merlin stands in the middle of the room, Arthur’s crown in her hands and a coy smile on her face. “I hadn’t even _swallowed_ before you were shoving me out of the way,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “You’re lucky that you taste very good.”

Arthur allows himself to smile, pleased with the fact that finally, the tense air between them seems to have shifted. He walks into the room properly, and Merlin steps forward to meet him. She gently places the crown upon his head, her hand caressing his cheek for just a moment as it returns to her side. Arthur shivers at the touch, but tries not to let it show. “You sound like you know what ‘very good’ tastes like,” Arthur smirks, keeping up appearances. “Have you had much experience with the taste?”

Merlin’s face falls. There are no traces of her earlier tears there now. “I... Arthur,” she says softly, looking straight into his eyes. “I haven’t been with that many men... well, I was young, I was a girl and they were boys but now, I...” Merlin pauses, before she sighs heavily and looks down at her feet. “I haven’t shared my bed with anyone else since the last time we were together and I don’t really intend to. There, I said it,” she says hurriedly, looking into his eyes before she turns away to the flowers she had been arranging earlier.

“Why do you say that?” Arthur asks, brows drawing together as he watches her nimble fingers work with the flowers.

Merlin turns to him quickly. “Because you know exactly what I want and how I want it. You understand my... my desires, and you’re not afraid to take from me. And I like that, I want that. No one else understands. It’s just like Ki--” She looks as if she’s going to continue her sentence, before she promptly shuts her mouth and turns back to her work. “Someone once told me an old wives’ tale about destiny,” she says quietly in a tone that indicates the end of the conversation.

Arthur hesitates in a very unregal fashion, torn between taking Merlin into his arms and leaving her to her odd mood and riddles. He chooses the latter, and brands himself a coward. “Don’t spend too long in here, I don’t want the guests to like Camelot so much that they desire to stay. I will take my supper in my chambers by nightfall,” he says to her back, before striding to the door and lifting the latch, pausing when he remembers something. “Oh, and Merlin?”

Merlin looks up from her work, expression unreadable. “Yes, sire?”

“Don’t wear your hair in braids. I much prefer it down.”

Merlin smiles, a beautiful thing that starts small but slowly spreads across her face. “Of course, sire.”

Arthur whistles all the way back to his chambers.


End file.
